Two looms with shawl-weavers at work, children playing in the foreground and several women sent, one of them spinning yarn. By a Sikh artist, Critsar or Lahore, c. 1866 watercolour on paper, blue rules, in a near-contemporary French mount with label

Two looms with shawl-weavers at work, children playing in the foreground and several women sent, one of them spinning yarn. By a Sikh artist, Critsar or Lahore, c. 1866 watercolour on paper, blue rules, in a near-contemporary French mount with label of Susse Freres on reverse, painted surface 258 by 426mm. From a series of illustrations of shawl manufacture commissioned from a Sikh artist by the French East India Company for the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1867 High-quality shawl manufacture had formerly been a tradition of Kashmir, but by the 1860s Amritsar and Lahore had become centres of production. Most French importers of Indian shawls therefore retained their agents in these cities. For further references and a thorough account of shawl manufacture see V.Murphy, Kashmir Shawls. Woven an and Cultural Document, London Kyburg Gallery 1988, where eight similar watercolours are described, no.2 being another version of the same stage of manufacture with interesting variations. See also sale in these rooms 10 October 1988, lots 11-14